Call me a sadist, call me boring, call me lazy, just don’t call me late for dinner. Anyway, as I’m watching “Bicentennial Man” on DVD, the movie came back to me in bits and pieces from the time I saw it in the theater. Unfortunately those bits and pieces didn’t get any better.

Anywho, if “Bicentennial Man” is any indication of “the very near future,” as it says at the beginning of the movie, I want no part of it. Why? Sure you’ve got some pretty cool cars, but no one seemed to watch TV anymore. What’s up with that? Oh well, at least I’ll have some cool android to clean the dude pad, I just hope it isn’t Andrew, the android in this movie. Just clean my kitchen, I don’t want conversation. For that I’ve got fake people in chat rooms on the internet.

In “Bicentennial Man” we get the story of Andrew (Robin Williams) the android. He’s bought by Sam Martin (Sam Neill), seemingly to help out around the house, but from the hint of one of the daughters it seemed more like Sam was just “keeping up with the Jones'” because all of her friend’s families already had an android. But Andrew is different, he has human qualities, like creativity and feelings, that his fellow androids lack, and for Sam it seems Andrew becomes kind of like the son he never had as Sam explains to Andrew how to save money, teaches Andrew about the birds and the bees, and is more like a dad to Andrew than an owner. But Andrew is a robot and he doesn’t like it, or maybe more importantly doesn’t like being alone. He wants to love, so he searches for another robot like him, doesn’t find one but does find Rupert (Oliver Platt), an inventor dude, who helps Andrew look human.

It’s a bunch of years later, Andrew now looks like Robin Williams, and he falls in love with Portia (like the car, complete with nice curves, only spelled differently), the granddaughter of one of Sam’s daughter who Andrew had a thing for years ago. Portia (Embeth Davidtz) has a problem though – how can you fall in love with a robot? Well, she does but can’t accept it, and it’s up to Andrew to prove to her that robots need people too. Thanks to Rupert figuring out a way for Andrew to have a, well, penis, well, Andrew and Portia live happily ever after. Enough about the story.

“Bicentennial Man” looks like it would be a cute movie for the kids, kinda like “Mrs. Doubtfire” if she were a robot in the future, but that is not this movie. This movie has the story of a robot searching for his true identity, searching to make his mark in life, and even searching for sex. Kinda adult fare for the kids, don’t ya think? And the movie’s over two hours long, and it feels it. At least on video you can hit the “pause” button.

Robin holds back a lot of humor in this role, and I think that’s too bad because “Bicentennial Man” had the potential to be a gut-buster of a film if it wanted to be. Instead it kept to the serious side most of the time, with an occasional joke of a robot not understanding human phrasing of sentences, and other more adult humor. I wanted it to be a fun movie for kids to see, but I can’t recommend you rent it unless one, you want to have to explain a little more about sex than you already have, and two, are ready for the kids to learn when to say “piece of shit.” If you see the video you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

In all honesty, I didn’t expect “Bicentennial Man” on video to be any better than “Bicentennial Man” in the theaters, and I stick to my rating. The premise was good, and the robot being Robin Williams gave the role potential, but it took Andrew nearly 200 years in his life and about two hours of movie time to figure out that because he was a robot, well, he would see everyone he ever loves die, forever. Kinda like “The Highlander” dude. Andrew finally realizes this isn’t how he wants to live his life and has Rupert make one more upgrade so he can grow old. He finally becomes human.

I give “Bicentennial Man” 2 stars out of 5. Watch how young the kids are if you rent it or else you’ll have some explaining to do, and the movie could have been so much more. Oh well.